I am creating a ground texture, and I cannot seem to get the exact effect I'm looking for, and I've been playing with it for a while and cannot seem to get it right.

Here's what I'm doing.

I select the Difuse map and I set the Type to Gradient. I then add my images through Color #1, Color #2, and Color #3 to mix the material (grass, leaves, and dirt). While this is (kind of) the effect I want, I'd like more control over it. (Aside from adding noise to the gradient.

http://recon108.tripod.com/help/example1.jpg

http://recon108.tripod.com/help/example2.jpg

I created a greyscale images that I'd like to use, but I then can't mix the grass, leaves, and dirt.

http://recon108.tripod.com/help/example3.jpg

What do I do to get the effect I want?

Thanks for any help anyone might give...

Please copy and past the URL into a new browser to see the image...

leigh

08-20-2002, 07:58 AM

Hey there :)
Hmmm.... the grass looks nice, but I think that it is a little too.... rainbowish. :hmm:
I think that is from the images in the gradient :shrug: You need to make them a little less prominent in your colour channel.
I presume that you are using the gradient to have sand where the geometry dips down lower?
I would recommend rather, instead of using that method, you use the method with the greyscale images to control their placement, so that the greyscale images work as alpha channels. I'm sure you can do that in Max, can't you? You need to make some kind of mulit-layer material (I'm not sure what it is called in Max, but it's when you can stack lots of images straight on top of each other... I think it is called a mix material)
This does indeed give you far greater control over it, and is the only method that I ever use for texturing any kind of landscape.

Chris

08-20-2002, 08:31 PM

Leighs right, a blend material is what you want. I'd put the grass & dirt into the two slots of a blend material & use that noise map as the mask. Then nest that material inside another blend material, mixing between your dirt/grass & the leaves. You can then use a bitmap to show where you want ground & where you want leaves (like that path bitmap, number 3) :)

[edit] you could do the same thing with a mix map in the diffuse channel, but if you use a blend material instead you are able to easily give the dirt, grass & leaves differing material properties (like specular levels, gloss amounts, bump, diffuse level ;) ) without creating dedicated maps - so if at a later date, you want to change the areas which have leaves on them, you just have to change the mask bitmap & thats all.

recon108

08-21-2002, 01:52 AM

Leigh and Chris, thank you very much. I easily spent an hour or more trying to figure it out. I was trying the right thing, but I was going about it the wrong way. I definatly learned something...

:cool:

I'm still working on it, but here's a preview.

http://recon108.tripod.com/help/pathblend.jpg

Thanks again.

Chris

08-21-2002, 02:24 AM

thats looking better! For your mask maps, instead of having them blend through greyscale levels from black to white, try painting some hard edged rough edged strokes where the light meets the dark. That way instead of the grass & stones becoming partially transparent (which is a bit unrealistic) they will switch to the other material sorta more properly (oh yeah, thats gotta be my best explanation yet :thumbsup: )

I've attached an image to illustrate what I mean (excuse the quality, no tablet at this computer) this kind of thing would be good for where the grass meets the dirt, for the other where the stones meet the grass & dirt, something more blobby, like stones would be more appropriate)

:)

recon108

08-21-2002, 03:02 AM

Thanks Chris, I'll give that a try and show you the results...

:thumbsup:

recon108

08-21-2002, 07:04 AM

I think it's coming along...

Damn there's alot of bitching around when adding textures or materials... ack! :hmm:

http://recon108.tripod.com/help/pathblend2.jpg

I'm going to redo the grass/leaves portion tomorrow...

leigh

08-21-2002, 08:21 AM

Aaahh yeah that's definitely coming along :thumbsup:
The main thing that doesn't look quite right is the placement of the grass, but I know you are working on it ;)
The other thing that bugs me is the repeating leaves in the dirt - you should try to avoid tiling images like that ;)

recon108

08-21-2002, 02:01 PM

Leigh,

Placement of the grass? What do you mean? (I don't know alot about texturing) lol
The weed in the dirt is bugging me too, I'm gonna get rid of it. :)

leigh

08-21-2002, 02:17 PM

What I meant by placement of the grass is that right now it's edges where it meets the sand are too straight and therefore appear slightly unnatural.
Grass growing naturally would be more jagged and uneven ;)
Otherwise, it's looking cool :D
Glad to hear that you are getting rid of the weeds ;)

Oh, hey... Welcome back to another episode of 'I don't know what I'm doing' lol

Anyways... :D

Leigh: Gotcha, I made it a bit more jaggy. Thanks for the advice (again) :)

derwolpertinger: Tripod doesn't support hot linking, so you'll have to copy and paste the URL into a new browser to beable to see the pics. It's a pain, but there's nothing I can do about this until I set up my own weeb server...

Oh, here are two more pics, which will you like better? <Jepardy music begins>

http://recon108.tripod.com/help/pathblend3.jpg

http://recon108.tripod.com/help/pathblend4.jpg

ttfn

leigh

08-22-2002, 08:33 AM

Definitely the second one :thumbsup:

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